Lovers for a Day

URANUS IN THE HOUSE OF DEATH

Only very rarely is someone from Prague invited to Australia with their fare and expenses paid. Director Michal Vrba received an invitation to a theatre festival due to take place in the city of Adelaide during March. The festival was linked to all sorts of exhibitions, conferences and debates. To judge from the programme enclosed with the invitation, the distant seaport with the sweet maidenly name would be sagging under the weight of cultural events during the festival.

Michal tended to be a doer who regarded talk about theatre as a waste of time, since everything that could be said about theatre had already been written long ago. None the less the invitation pleased him — thrilled him in fact. He replied immediately, saying that he accepted the invitation to speak about Czech theatre and was looking forward to visiting the antipodes.

Regarding himself as a free agent (he had been divorced several years earlier) he could see nothing to prevent him taking the trip.

When he arrived that evening at Leona's (Leona s real name

was Alena, but from the moment she became his lover he had called her Leona; it sounded more arty) he told her about his trip with almost excessive enthusiasm. He exaggerated because he was unsure how she would react to the news and he wanted to make it clear that he was going whether she liked it or not.

'And they didn't invite me?' she wanted to know.

'I don't think they even invited wives.'

Leona acted in the small theatre where he was the sole director, as well as administrator, manager, and, most of the time, author of the plays (or rather poetical compilations.) He had trained as an economist, however, and defected to the theatre because economics bored him. But his knowledge came in handy as he had some inkling at least about market forces. He found Leona attractive — she was tall and slender with small breasts and a soft voice — and she was alluringly eccentric. Whenever she got drunk, which was quite often, she wanted to make love to him, no matter where they happened to be. Then she would demand, 'What have you done to me?' And she would expect him to reply in the most direct terms. Apart from that she was interested in all sorts of magic. She made regular visits to an astrologer and consulted fortune-tellers and homoeopaths. Michal didn't believe in any of that stuff, but so long as she brought him indisputable predictions about the good prospects of their relationship, or possible dangers for their theatre, or potential economic opportunities, he accepted it as part of their amatory conversations. He had therefore already provided her with the precise details about the moment when he left his mother's womb, and from time to time even allowed her to tell his fortune from the cards, which almost always foretold love and stressed with surprising frequency his artistic proclivities.

'Last time my tarot-reader talked about a long journey,' she now recalled. 'I thought she was talking about me, but now I see she meant both of us.'

She obviously regarded the fact that the journey was foretold as a good omen, or, more accurately, it meant that she could not receive the news other than as confirmation of what was intended to happen. That eased his mind and he started to wonder whether, since he had the rare chance of travelling such a long way, he shouldn't stay there for at least a month. That idea didn't appeal to Leona. What was she supposed to do here while he was off globe-trotting?

'When I come back we'll take a lovely holiday together,' he promised.

'Yes, we'll take a bus ride into the country. That'll be a great holiday. But go where you like, I'm sure I'll find something to do here while you're away.' It sounded like a threat, but he pretended not to have heard, as he disliked quarrels.

Then he returned to his usual routine: rehearsals, performances and scrounging for money, but in addition he had to spend the evenings writing his paper for the conference. He decided to write about small theatres, not simply because they were the ones he was most familiar with, but also because he was convinced that they were the only thing it was possible to say anything interesting about, since only they, if the theatre was going to survive, had any future. The theatre, he maintained, was one of the last places where the spectator could still personally witness the act of creation. However, the big theatres so alienated the audience from the actor, that instead of witnessing the act of creation they could only witness its effect. For a public brought up on television, the theatrical stage was no more than a big TV screen, the only thing special about it

being its three-dimensionality, and technical advances were bound to rob it of that remaining uniqueness before long. By contrast, small theatres facilitated mutual contact. The act of creation had far-reaching implications in today's hypertech world. It had become the only way for the human spirit to escape both the stultifying stereotype of the mundane and the depths towards which it is drawn by the dark forces of that banality that encourages and accumulates within it.

He visited Leona almost every day. During supper about a week before his departure, when he was in the grip of pre-travel nerves, Leona suddenly said to him:

'You mustn't fly there.'

'Fly where?' he gasped.

'You mustn't fly anywhere. You should be extremely cautious about what you do because you have Uranus in your eighth house.'

'So?'

'It's the house of death!'

'How did you figure that out?'

'I went to see my astrologer. After all, I have to consult him when you're planning a journey like that!'

'You know I don't believe in it.' Astrology happened to be one of the dark forces that enticed people into the depths.

'It's immaterial whether you believe it or not. What must happen will happen.'

'And what must happen?'

'Michal,' she said, 'this journey of yours won't turn out well. Apart from that, your Saturn is in opposition to Uranus. My astrologer told me he'd never seen such a depressing constellation.'

'Are you trying to tell me my plane is going to crash?'

'I've no idea what will happen. All I know is that your journey can't turn out well for you.'

'Who has worked this out, you or your ridiculous astrologer?'

'He's not ridiculous. He's one of the best astrologers there is. Everyone says so.'

'Everyone who believes that nonsense.'

'I believe him. Everything he foresaw for me came true.'

'For instance.'

'He foresaw you.'

'He foresaw me?'

'Yes, he told me I'd meet you.'

'That you'd meet me and not just some guy?'

'That I'd meet you.'

'Did he tell you my name?'

She hesitated. 'He said I'd meet a Virgo with strong artistic leanings, and that it would turn out well for me.'

Admittedly the 'strong artistic leanings' flattered him but he had no intention of changing his views about superstitions. 'I don't believe in it. It's quite simple, you do and I don't!'

'So you're determined to fly in spite of the warning?'

'Of course. I've already got my ticket.'

'But something's going to happen to you, for God's sake!'

'Forget about it.'

Then they made love as usual. When he woke up in the night he noticed she was sitting on the bed looking at him. 'What's up?'

'I'm looking at you.' Then she put her arms around him. 'Darling, you mustn't go, you really mustn't. Something will happen to you. Something terrible!' And she burst into tears.

Then they sat together on the divan until morning while he

tried to explain to her that there was either no connection at all between the position of the planets in the heavens and the fate of people on earth, or that it was so insignificant it was outweighed by thousands of other, more important considerations. Besides — it occurred to him — if the position of the planets really was crucial, then all those people born at the same moment would have to have virtually the same fate. And that was clearly nonsense. Or was she trying to tell him that everyone boarding that aircraft had Uranus in their house of death?

She told him she wasn't saying anything about the plane, only about him.

But if some calamity was awaiting him, he would be just as likely to encounter it here as in the antipodes.

No, she was here to protect him. Besides, the astrologer had told her he definitely shouldn't fly.

It struck Michal that Leona simply didn't want to let him go, that she was jealous of his trip and it so incensed him he started to shout at her.

She started to weep hysterically. The way actresses know how to.

At that afternoon's rehearsal (they were preparing a programme of Tibetan poetry), she had recited the verses: You can tell wise men from fools because they see things that have not yet come, although come they surely must. She said the words with such emphasis that there could be no doubting who the message was intended for. Most likely all the company already knew that Uranus resided in his house of death and that in spite of it he was determined to fly to his doom. He certainly had the impression that they were looking at him as if seeing him alive for the last time.

He had to change in London to catch the Australian airline s plane. When he first caught sight of the enormous jumbo jet through the glass of the terminal (he had never even set eyes before on such a colossus, let alone flown in one), it struck him as unbelievable that such a gigantic heap of metal could fly at all. And if it did (as it undoubtedly could) then it must be particularly vulnerable. This thought about its vulnerability naturally had nothing to do with any ridiculous astrological superstitions, it was something that must inevitably strike anyone boarding a transoceanic plane of that size. Even so it was statistically proven that air travel is by far the safest form of transport, and since tens of millions of passengers travelled that way every year, a good few thousand of them were bound to have Uranus or some other planet in their house of death. Although it was also a fact that planes did crash from time to time — due to some technical fault, of course, not because some of the passengers had Uranus or Saturn. . He decided he would quite simply stop thinking about Uranus in his death house and joined the queue of those waiting to expose their luggage and themselves to the all-seeing rays. He noticed that the man in front of him had his hat pulled down low over his eyes and that he had dark glasses and a broad criminal chin. He looked just like a screen or stage gangster (Michal must have encountered real live gangsters on many occasions in the past, but their criminal nature had remained hidden from him). When the man placed his bag on the conveyor belt, the uniformed attendant seated at the screen happened to be looking away and exchanging a few words with a passing air hostess. Had there been a bomb hidden in the bag it would have gone undetected. Anyway, as far as he knew, X-rays weren't able to detect Semtex. There was nothing for it but to put his faith in

Providence and trust blindly that the 350 or so passengers did not include even one suicidal maniac.

What percentage of the world's population was suicidal maniacs? And the percentage of ordinary suicidal individuals? If someone is intent on killing himself why shouldn't he take along a few dozen others who would prefer to survive?

As he was leaving, Leona gave him a letter, asking him to open it before he boarded the plane. He had been determined not to open it until he was in the plane, but because he was obliged to wait in the terminal building he pulled the envelope out of his pocket and opened it.

My one and only darling,

Don't get on the plane. Don't fly anywhere. Australia is a country like any other. You can see kangaroos at the zoo and you wouldn't learn anything about the theatre even if you did arrive. But I'm afraid you won't. I know you won't. I want you. I need you alive.

The call for the first batch of passengers came over the PA. He folded up the letter, which he actually found quite touching, and put it back in his pocket. For a moment he toyed with the idea of not boarding. He'd simply announce that he was not going aboard because he was afraid.

Afraid of what?

He had received a serious warning. However, it concerned only him.

Fine, that's your business. But your tickets will no longer be valid.

Tickets, tickets, what did tickets matter compared to his own life?

He would still be sitting here in the terminal when the first news of the tragic accident came on the television. They 'would put his survival down to miraculous good fortune. He could actually visualize the headlines, Another Triumph for Astrology! And how would he get home? Or was he going to stay sitting here in the terminal until Uranus slipped out of his house of death? Meanwhile the festival would be over and he would never get a chance to cross the equator, see the Southern Cross or set his face to the cold southern breeze bringing with it the scent of the Antarctic.

Now they were calling his row, so he stood up and joined the crowd swarming onto the plane.

He did not catch sight of the gangster on board, but that did not reassure him. In fact it had the opposite effect. The aircraft was a double-decker so he hadn't the faintest idea who was on the lower floor.

On one side of him sat a man with protruding ears and a Mafia-style moustache who greeted him with a 'Buona sera' and then mumbled something unintelligible. On the other side, there was quite an interesting-looking blonde who immediately started reading an English-language booklet.

He had also brought some books with him but instead he took the letter out of his pocket. He was moved by the fact that Leona was so afraid for him. As soon as he stepped off the plane onto Australian soil he would call her. Assuming he ever found himself on Australian soil.

The aircraft slowly and quietly started to move. Its enormous bulk rolled along the concrete runway. A map flashed onto the television screen in front of him with the route of the flight. Height zero, speed 1 knot.

Then the aircraft came to a halt and the jet engines suddenly

roared into life. The stewardess was demonstrating how to attach the safety belt and how to put on the oxygen mask and lifebelt.

Did any of the stewardesses have their stars read before a flight? What would happen to a stewardess who refused to go on duty because she discovered Uranus was entering her house of death?

He took his notebook and pencil out of his pocket and started to write.

Sweetheart,

We've just taken off. The flight takes about sixteen hours with a stopover in Singapore. I'll send you a postcard from Singapore. Just so you know I was there and was thinking of you. If I don't write it will mean I didn't arrive as you prophesied but that I crashed thniking of you.

He suddenly realized that if he didn't arrive this piece of paper would never reach his lover, so he stuffed his notebook back in his pocket.

The stewardesses started bringing round drinks. Many stewardesses, many drinks. They also handed out headphones to listen to any of five radio programmes or the soundtrack for the films.

The blonde at his side closed her book, put on her headphones and listened intently to something for a while. Two little Indian girls chased each other up and down the aisle between the seats. Figures flashed onto the screen with the map. They were 400 kilometres from London at a height of 10,580 metres. Outside the window it was 47 degrees below zero.

He shut his eyes. He felt extremely lonely in this overcrowded space.

He didn't tend to think about death, but of all deaths the most horrible to his mind was death by drowning. One lacked nothing, one just needed to breathe and instead there was 'water, water everywhere'.

In the middle of the ocean in a life jacket. As if anyone could ever free themselves from this enormous structure if it crashed into the sea. It suddenly struck him that the entire trip was pointless. He had no need to fly to Australia. It was gratuitous pride, the pride of the modern man, who doesn't even know the neighbours in his block of flats yet can boast he has been to the antipodes. How many of the people here really needed to travel from one end of the world to the other? Pride comes before a fall. People invented that saying before they had any inkling that they would proudly fly and also fall.

It was interesting how many famous and presumably otherwise sensible people believed in astrology.

Australia — Austrology.

People wanted to believe in something, naturally. The thought of our journeys being unpredictable, solely dependent on chance circumstances, was too disheartening. Just like the thought that we came from nothing and would disappear into nothing.

The weakest return to nothingness was via water. When the water-logged lungs could no longer take in a single gasp of air. Water, water everywhere.

He wiped the sweat from his forehead.

The Mafioso at his side was muttering something under his breath. He was praying most likely. It struck him that everyone in this particular space was acting as if everything was all right

when in fact they were gripped by fear. He could feel it; the atoms of panic were floating in the air: silent, sticky and oppressive.

The fair-haired woman at his side took off her headphones and turned to ask him where he was flying to. As if he could fly anywhere else apart from the plane's destination.

But she was flying on to New Zealand. She was a physics teacher from Dunedin.

No, he'd never been there.

Almost no one had been there apart from those who were born there or who had emigrated there. But it was a beautiful place at the southern tip of South Island. A rugged coastline, picturesque with cliffs, seals and cormorants.

It struck him that as a physics teacher she was bound to know something about the laws which allowed such a colossus to hold itself up at this frosty height. She would also know something about the planets, and even astrology. But he was too shy to ask.

Food was brought round. They were already 1,080 kilometres from London and nearing the coast of Africa. But the surrounding air temperature had dropped another three degrees. The aircraft was travelling at a speed of 970 kilometres per hour.

He finished his meal. The stewardesses gave out lightweight slippers, pillows, blankets and black eye-masks.

He had hardly slept a wink the night before his departure. First he had taken leave of his friends and then of Leona. She hadn't tried to dissuade him any more but had simply given him the letter as they parted. He suppressed the urge to read the dismal prophecy once more. No, it would be pointless by now. He ought to sleep instead. Or at least think about something cheerful, such as the antipodean theatre festival, a land full of

strange plants and animals, or a sky full of stars that he had never set eyes on before.

He tipped his seat back, placed a pillow under his head and covered his eyes with the black band.

All of a sudden he realized that within that constantly roaring blend of noises he could make out the regular ticking — albeit very quiet — of some kind of clock.

A time bomb. Somewhere right under his seat. He had an urge to leap up and call over a stewardess straight away. But instead he slowly raised himself and leaned far enough over to look under the seat. To all appearances a neatly packed life jacket was stowed there. And anyway the ticking had stopped. He sat up. Scarcely was he upright than the ticking resumed. It seemed to come from the side where the blonde teacher from Dunedin was sitting. She was still reading.

Maybe he was raving.

Even so he plucked up courage and asked her if she could hear the ticking too.

Of course. She took a small alarm clock out of her handbag. She always took it with her because sometimes she needed to get up particularly early. But he certainly had extremely sharp ears to have noticed the ticking amidst all that din.

The Italian at his side was still muttering something. Behind him a child was crying. On the map spread out beneath them the coastline of a continent was visible. How many miles were there still to go? How many hours of uncertainty? But when, where and how could one find certainty? He shut his eyes.

Uranus in his house of death. Such nonsense. My one and only darling, I'm afraid you won't arrive. I know you won't.

He screwed up his courage once more and asked his neighbour whether she was interested in astrology?

Of course, she replied and smiled delightedly. It's my hobby. I know how to draw up horoscopes, both radical and progressive charts. I have a whole bundle of star charts at home. Our fates are predetermined, you know. Our only problem is not knowing how to read them properly yet.

Do you really think so? Sorry, I'm Michal.

I'm Jane. Yes, I really do. I know so.

May I ask you something, Jane?

Of course, ask away, Michal, ask away, darling.

In which house is your Uranus, Jane?

In the house of death. And yours?

Mine is too, Jane. So how come you risked taking this flight?

Because there's no escaping your fate. Only foolish people think they will manage to. The foolish are always on the run. Or on the attack. Or building towers. They think they are building towers when in point of fact they are building labyrinths in which they will die anyway.

You're not afraid of dying?

Why should I be, seeing that we are going to die together? But darling, this is me, didn't you recognize me? I disguised myself so that I could be with you. Far better to end it for good in the ocean waves than spend a holiday just outside Prague. Your house of death will be mine too!

Leona!

At that moment a deafening explosion shot him into the air and then there began a long, terrifying final descent into the depths. He saw the rapidly approaching surface of the water and in paralysing terror he opened his eyes. The young woman alongside him was asleep. The lights in the plane were dimmed. On the screen in front of him the dark spot of the aircraft moved across the Indian Ocean.

When at last he disembarked at Sydney airport and found out how many dollars a three-minute phone call to Prague cost, he decided to call Leona. He announced triumphantly that he had landed in the antipodes in spite of her astrologer s forecast.

'I know you landed safely,' she said.

'You know?' he marvelled. 'But you prophesied. .'

'I miscalculated,' she quickly interrupted him. 'I was counting September as the tenth month, when in fact it's the ninth, of course. I gave my astrologer faulty information. I only realized my mistake after you'd taken off. You're a Virgo, of course, not a Libra. I don't know how I could have made that mistake. Your Uranus wasn't in the house of death, but in the house of love instead.'

'I don't believe this. Just imagine what would have happened if I'd let myself be dissuaded and stayed at home!'

'What would have happened? You'd be with me,' she said. 'You ought to be with me now anyway, seeing you've got Uranus in your house of love.'

(1994)

IT'S RAINING OUT

It was true that Judge Martin Vacek had dealt with a number of political cases under the old regime, but as he was only five years off retirement age, it was suggested to him that from now on he should deal exclusively with divorce cases (which, anyway, is what he used to do when he first came to the bench). He considered this to be an acceptable, even sensible proposal. He could, of course, have left the bench altogether, as several of his colleagues had done, and set up privately as a barrister, which was far more lucrative. But he was conservative by nature and had no wish to alter his daily routine and his regular journey to work, let alone have to start looking for and equipping private chambers. None the less, he consulted his wife about what he should do.

He had been married for thirty years and had stopped loving his wife Marie long ago; in fact he could no longer remember a time when he did actually love her. Nevertheless they got on fairly well together and he had been accustomed to consult her about career decisions, and even about some of the more

complicated cases he had to try. His wife, who was a year older, came from the country and had no more than elementary schooling; she had spent her life working at the post office for paltry wages. She did, however, have a natural wisdom, which was fortunately unspoilt by a legal training. Marie had plainly stopped loving him years ago too, but she looked after him almost like a mother, cooking him good meals and making sure not only that his shirts were ironed but also that he had a suitable tie to wear with them. In the course of their life together she was bound to have influenced if not his character then at least his appearance, and since they both favoured the colour grey, their very features gradually began to take on a grey hue too. In recent years they had come to regard each other as an indispensable part of the household, particularly now that their two sons had grown up and moved away and the apartment felt empty, although crammed with all sorts of essentially useless objects and knick-knacks. They barely spoke any more, although there was a time when they used to go out together to the cinema or a concert (it was the done thing for someone in his position to have a season ticket for the philharmonic concerts), or Marie would relate to him the plots of novels she had read as he didn't have the time to. Nowadays, though, they didn't go to the cinema and simply exchanged a few words about food, shopping, their sons or the weather, or they simply watched the television together in silence. Marie no longer told him anything about what she read, if she read anything at all these days. It therefore came as a surprise to her when he asked her whether he should remain on the bench or start something completely fresh. It was not her custom to contradict her husband and when in the past he had asked her opinion on something, she had always tried to guess the reply

he was wanting to hear. 'Divorce suits —' she now said, '- that could be fairly interesting work. You'll get to hear lots of stories.'

It had never occurred to him to view his possible future employment from such an angle. He had heard so many stories in his lifetime that they had long since ceased to interest him. None the less he took his wife's opinion into account and remained on the bench.

As it turned out, the cases tended to be more banal than interesting. In most of them, immature men had married young women who yearned for something that their husbands could not provide, so in time there appeared a third person who disrupted what had never been firmly established in the first place. Even so, his summing up was often met with tears. He would divorce couples on grounds of infidelity or mutual incompatibility. Some of them were husbands and wives who had stopped living together long ago, but in spite of that, he could never rid himself of the conviction that most of the divorces were unnecessary, that people were attempting to escape the inescapable: their own emptiness, their own incapacity to share their lives with another person. At least to the extent he had managed to himself.

There were so many cases that they soon became indistinguishable and even the people's faces slipped quickly from his memory — which was beginning to decline with age anyway. Now and then, however, a more interesting case would crop up, and a face, a name or an occupation would stick in his mind.

After one such a sitting, he emerged from the courtroom to discover the woman he had just divorced sitting opposite him on a bench in the corridor, crying.

The woman's name was Lída Vachková, a name that had immediately caught his eye because of its resemblance to his own, quite apart from the fact that the woman's distinctive, delicate beauty and her timid replies to his questions had held his attention in court. He attributed her delicacy to her profession; she was a violinist. Although it was uncharacteristic of him, he stopped in front of her and said, 'Don't cry, Mrs Vachková, no pain lasts for ever.'

She glanced up at him in surprise and quickly wiped away her tears. 'Thank you.' As she got up she started to sway and he was obliged to catch hold of her. 'Are you feeling unwell?'

'Do forgive me,' she said, 'I took some tablets this morning. To calm my nerves.'

He invited her into his chambers and fetched her a glass of water. He knew not only her name and occupation but also her age. She was twenty years his junior, very young, in his eyes, at least. He also knew the man who until a short while ago had been her husband. He too was older than she was (although at this moment he couldn't exactly recall how much older) and ran some recently established entertainment agency. A vulgar, unpleasant-looking fellow, he had apparently subjected his wife to rough and domineering treatment and had sought to curb all her interests. There were no children. They had had no problem agreeing on the division of their property — there wasn't very much anyway. The man had left the flat to his wife and moved in with his mistress.

'Do you really believe no pain lasts for ever?' she asked.

'Of course.'

'Did you ever have a pain that went away in the end?'

He was not accustomed to being cross-examined and was taken unawares. He had to stop and think for a moment

whether anything had happened in his life that had caused him a pain that had gone away. On the contrary, things in his life had tended to die gradually. Then he recalled the death of his parents. 'Even the pain of death eventually goes away,' he said evasively.

'That's true,' she conceded, 'though death is a rather special category.'

'What makes you think so?'

'Death is like the law. There is no escape from it. Whereas love. .' She seemed to be searching for a word to express the meaning of love, but instead burst into tears once again.

He helped her to her feet and saw her to the door and down the stairs. He then invited her to a nearby wine bar. He wasn't sure why, with this young woman, he was behaving in this way. There must be something about her that touched him, or that he found attractive. Or maybe there was some other reason that he was unable to put his finger on. He ordered a bottle of wine and let the woman relate her recent tribulations, although he only took in a few details; he was gazing at her hands, her fingers involuntarily toying with the napkin. They were so beautiful he wanted to clasp them or stroke them. So from time to time he would interrupt her and tell her some of the incidents he had heard about in the course of his work to reassure her that she was far from alone in her suffering.

When they parted an hour later, she invited him to a concert to be performed by the orchestra she played in. She also, naturally, invited his wife, but in the end he went to it alone. He found it impossible to concentrate on the music; his attention was focused on a single member of the orchestra — the flickering movements of her fingers and her fine bowing — and he felt an unwonted emotion. He was astounded at himself and at his

feelings, which struck him as inappropriate for someone of his age. But then it occurred to him that he had simply written off feelings from his life too soon.

He found her address and telephone number in the file.

They started to meet twice a week, initially in a café or a wine bar, fairly typically. He was aware that because of his profession she regarded him as an expert on matters of love, or rather on those cases where love was foundering, and indeed when questioned he sought to draw more general lessons from the cases that lay hidden in his memory. Even though he had little belief in the possibility of people living together in love, he realized how cautious he was in his comments, and how he could speak about something he had been unable to achieve in his own life: a relationship of mutual admiration and respect out of which tenderness grew. She listened to him with interest and even a sort of growing hopefulness. 'I expect you're good at love,' she said and gave his hand a momentary squeeze. 'You strike me as someone who can be tolerant and allow the other person some space for themselves.'

He nodded, pleased that she should think of him in that way.

Then she invited him home.

She lived in a tiny attic room and as he walked up the many stairs (the house had no lift) his legs were buckling under him from excitement or maybe anxiety at what was certainly about to happen.

The little room had sloping walls and almost no furniture, just a wardrobe, a music stand, two chairs and a large divan beneath a skylight. They made love underneath that window.

She seemed slim and finely built compared to his wife and her skin was smooth, without a single fold or wrinkle. To his surprise, he found tender words for her. She listened to him

and he had barely stopped speaking when she said, 'More please. I want more of those words.' As he was leaving she asked, 'Will we see each other again some time?' And he assured her that he would certainly be back soon.

And so he would visit her, bringing her flowers, wine and words of tenderness. They never spoke about her former marriage, and he mentioned his wife only occasionally, and always in a way that let her assume that his marriage was not particularly happy. As usually happens when information comes from one side only, she would conclude, had she made the effort, that the fault lay with his wife.

On one occasion, when they were again lying beneath the skylight onto which the heavy drops of a spring downpour were falling, she asked him, 'Do you love your wife at all?'

He said he didn't, that he hadn't loved her for many years.

Then for a long time neither of them said anything. She cuddled up to him as he stroked her flanks and her belly, the softness of her skin exciting him as always.

'What's the point of such a marriage, Martin?' she asked abruptly.

The question caught him unprepared. It had never occurred to him that he might leave his wife after thirty years of living together, not even now, as he lay at the side of a woman he had just made love to. He had long ceased wondering what bound him to his wife Marie. Habit perhaps. So many shared days and nights. Memories that now felt like stories about someone else. Maybe the chairs they sat on, or the familiar odour that wafted towards him the moment he opened the door of their flat. Maybe the sons they had reared.

'You don't have to tell me if you don't want to,' she said.

'Maybe,' it occurred to him, 'so that when I come home in foul weather like this I can say to someone, "It's raining out".'

'Yes, that's a good reason,' she said, drawing away from him slightly.

As he was leaving she didn't ask, as she usually did, when they 'would see each other again. So he asked instead.

'Maybe never,' she said. Even so she leaned towards him and kissed him.

On his way downstairs it occurred him that she had been expecting a different response, that he had mistaken the meaning of her question. She had been wanting to hear whether he was prepared to leave his wife for her.

He was overcome by an almost weary dejection. He could still turn back, ring her doorbell and give her a different answer. But what answer should he give?

So Judge Martin Vacek went on home.

When he opened the door of his own flat the familiar odour wafted towards him. Marie came out of the living room and greeted him as usual with the words: 'I'll have your dinner ready straight away'

He sat down at the table and stared silently ahead of him. He saw nothing. On the radio which his wife had switched on in the adjoining room someone was playing the violin. He found the sound of it so distressing he could hardly move. His wife placed a bowl of hot soup in front of him.

He knew he ought to say something, but he was filled with an emptiness that engulfed all speech. 'It's raining out,' he said eventually.

His wife looked out of the window in surprise. It had stopped raining long ago and the room was suffused with the dark red glow of the setting sun.

It was her custom not to contradict her husband, even though he had seemed to her more and more absent-minded just lately; perhaps old age was beginning to affect his mind.

'That's good,' she said, 'the farmers' fields could do with a bit of moisture.'

(1994)

A BAFFLING CHOICE

Marie Anna Pavlů was almost twenty-six years old and worked as a nurse in a crèche. There was nothing striking about her appearance or behaviour. She had a pleasant face, a petite figure and a slight, almost deferential, stoop. She used no make-up and dressed simply, choosing darker shades of green and blue. Her most colourful feature was her hair which had a coppery sheen in the sun. Her expression was enlivened with a smile, particularly when dealing with children. The more attentive parents noticed that children tended to cry less when Marie welcomed them.

She had scarcely reached adulthood when she married Jakub Pavlů, a programmer. They had met at college. He was a good dancer and enjoyed company but drank moderately. He used to sing when he was in the mood — he had an enormous repertoire, as if he had an add-on memory in his head. Before they were married they used to leave every Friday afternoon with a group of his friends and go to a weekend chalet site. The little chalets were huddled together so closely that every word from

the neighbouring cabin — every breath — was clearly audible. When she and Jakub made love there — it was the only place they could make love at the time — she uttered no sound at all. He assumed that she was shy because of the lack of privacy: it didn't occur to him that she was not aroused by him. Subsequently, when they were already living together, her mute passivity might have become more noticeable, but by then he was used to it and accepted the fact that his wife was timid and reserved by nature. Besides, he was not one of those men who think about giving their partner sexual pleasure.

A son was born two years after their wedding and they named him Matouš. He was a quiet baby who seldom cried, and when Marie spoke to him he seemed to understand what she was saying but was simply unable to reply. However, he did start to speak earlier than little boys usually do. Before he was even three Marie became accustomed to chatting to him as if they were the same age. It seemed to her that he was capable of sensing her mood, so that he would laugh if she was feeling fine and try to humour her when she was miserable. Then he suddenly fell ill with thymic asthma and almost suffocated to death with the first unexpected fit of coughing.

From that moment Marie lived in fear of another bout returning and killing her little boy while she was asleep. She would often leap out of bed at night and run to listen to his breathing. Afterwards she would find herself weeping inexplicably. She was simply aware of a vague sorrow that life should contain so much alienation, suffering and death. She felt sorry for other people's children who were brought to her every morning half asleep and crying, and for her own Matouš, whom she too delivered up to strangers even though she knew he would prefer to stay with her.

She herself had had little contact with her parents as a child. Her mother, a bad reporter on a bad newspaper, was away on assignments most of the time. Her father was a drunkard and a gambler who moved out shortly after Marie was born. She only saw him a few times a year. She was mostly in the care of her maternal grandmother, who also lived alone, but remarried when Marie was ten years old. Although in his sixties, her grandmother's new husband was still a vigorous man. He was rather boisterous and talked a lot. He also spoke more loudly than other people, so that at first Marie was scared of him. He had barely moved in before he was decorating the living room — her favourite place — to suit himself. He unpacked books from tea chests and decked the walls with glass cases of moths, landscapes in oils by Romantic masters and several antique puppets. The room no longer looked like the one she had been used to. Whenever she was in it she was overcome with a feeling of dejection and slight dread as if in anticipation of some unwelcome surprise.

Her step-grandfather soon became fond of her and actually seemed to brighten up in her presence. He enjoyed chatting with her and wanted to hear all her news each day. He gave her the impression he was genuinely interested in her prattle. Back in what was for her the inconceivably distant past, he had been a teacher of natural history. He had taught for only a short time — three years after the war they had sacked him on the grounds of political unreliability. Since then, he had earned his living in all sorts of jobs — ending up as a museum attendant. 'I started with natural history collections and ended with them!' And he would laugh as if fate had played a clever trick on him. Everything he said seemed to turn into a succession of weird or funny stories and encounters, or homilies and words of

wisdom. Often she wouldn't understand them, but there were sentences or images that stayed in her memory. Sometimes when they went for walks together he would sniff with delight scents she had hardly noticed and point out to her the natural markings in a stone she had been oblivious to. He would encourage her to listen to the scarcely audible sounds of the forest, and at dusk would make her look up at the sky. 'Stargazing raises the spirits and brings relief at moments of trouble, because it puts everything — all your joys, quarrels and heartache — into proper perspective.' He would impress on her that one must never despair whatever happens, because life gives everyone a chance to make their mark through some deed or other — to shine, to rise above the seeming futility of human existence. The opportunity might come at any moment, and often it was unremarkable because it could easily involve something small rather than something large. It might be to do with the life of a woman, or the life of a tree; it might mean relieving the suffering of a person, or a bird, or of the water, or the air.

When she was fifteen, her grandfather suffered a stroke that left his legs paralysed. He would move around the flat on crutches but refused to let her help him. He used to sit in the big wing chair and tell her stories in a faltering voice. A few weeks later he suffered another stroke and lost the power of speech entirely. When she came to visit him in hospital he definitely recognized her, but his mouth was no longer capable of smiling. She leaned over and kissed him and then burst into tears. How much suffering the departure from this life can entail which no one else can relieve, even when the one departing is the person you love best of all.

When she first met Jakub, her grandfather was already long

dead, but it struck her that the moment her grandfather had spoken of had finally arrived. Something would change in their lives to rid them of triviality and the pathetic striving after ephemera. But nothing of the sort happened.

It was several years before they moved into a flat of their own. It was on the seventh floor of a thirteen-storey panel-built block. The windows looked out onto equally unprepossessing concrete walls. In place of lawns, the areas in between the blocks of flats were filled with piles of earth, planks and stone. As it was only a few minutes' walk to the crèche where she worked, she spent her life amidst the half-finished housing estate. She tried to furnish the flat as simply as possible and made up for the lack of belongings with fresh flowers. She took proper care of her husband and her little boy even though it took up most of the time she might have had for herself. She cooked every day and baked home-made bread, buns or tarts for Sundays, the way women did in the old days.

Her husband just took it all for granted, and showed no sign of satisfaction or dissatisfaction. He was sparing with his affection not because he didn't love her, but because he was convinced that it was the husband's role to be reserved and condescending towards his wife.

For several years this was the pattern of their life together; for her it 'was quiet, monotonous and lonely. She knew none of the other tenants, even though they were mostly of her own age. Jeans and jean-jackets, trainers, tinted hair, the same deodorants and make-up, the same greetings said with the same intonation — everything and everyone became indistinguishable. Only in the flat below theirs lived an old man who was different from the others both in age and appearance: he walked with the aid of crutches.

On the odd occasion that they met by the lift in the hallway, she would hold the door open for him until he had manoeuvred himself in. As the lift went up, the old man would keep his gaze fixed on her. Several times she thought he was about to say something to her, but he apparently thought better of it or realized that he wouldn't manage to say all he wanted to by the time they reached his floor. Once she found him carrying a large box. When the lift stopped at the sixth floor, she helped him carry the parcel to the door of his flat. As soon as he opened his door, a mixture of organic and chemical smells wafted towards her. From inside the flat she could hear a parrot squawking and a fat tom-cat came and rubbed up against the old man's legs. The man started to thank her and she quickly said goodbye. As she was closing the door behind her she read his name on the door. It struck her that he must have been a very good-looking man in his youth. Everything about him was powerful, but most of all his hands, neck and chin. He still had a thick head of hair, even though it was nearly white. What had happened to him to make him need crutches? Then she stopped thinking about him.

The very next day she met him again in front of the flats as she was coming home from work. He greeted her and she smiled at him. She met him three more times that week — an odd coincidence, if it was a coincidence. On the third occasion, he was carrying a bunch of roses and as he was leaving the lift he handed them to her.

'But you can't have bought them for me!' she protested.

'Maybe I did,' he said and hobbled out of the lift.

The scent of the flowers filled her with a sense of vague expectation. When she put them into a vase she could not help smiling at her own feelings.

She baked some tarts for the weekend and set some aside, putting them in a chocolate box and then wrapping the box in tissue paper.

The old man lived in a single room that was more like a workshop or studio. Alongside a work bench stood a wooden press and a guillotine whose blade pointed upwards and made her feel queasy. Along the walls there were untidy heaps of books and papers. And the shelves and chairs were piled high with things too. The tom-cat was sleeping on the divan surrounded by a heap of discarded clothes. She noticed a number of unframed paintings — old-fashioned, romantic subjects that seemed out of keeping with the newness of the painting. Only then did she become aware of a painter's easel and on it a portrait in progress. She stared in consternation at the unfinished face. There could be no doubt: it was her own.

'I never studied painting,' she heard him say from behind her. He laid the box she had brought him on a table without opening it and hurriedly started to clear one of the chairs. 'I spent my whole life binding books. This is a new thing. I was attracted by the way you looked. You have so much noble beauty. Unfortunately I'm unable to capture it. There's something of our Slav forebears in you. .' The chair was now empty but she did not sit down. She apologized for arriving unannounced and quickly left.

Back in her own flat she rushed to the mirror and gazed at herself for a moment before realizing that in reality her eyes were much smaller than in the painting. She tried to open them as wide as she could and smiled at her reflection.

The next day she picked up her son from kindergarten in the early afternoon as usual. Matous talked incessantly. She

usually enjoyed his mixture of childish notions, make-believe and actual experience but today she found she was unable to concentrate. When in the distance she caught sight of the old bookbinder waiting in front of the flats she took her son to the sandpit so that she could go into the building on her own. He greeted her and hobbled after her into the lift. 'I tidied the place up today,' he announced to her as soon as the lift started to move. 'Wouldn't you like to drop in for a minute or two?'

Her portrait was now covered with a clean sheet and the clutter had disappeared from the chairs and the divan.

After all there was nothing wrong in visiting an old invalid who was obviously lonely. She sat down by the window in order to keep an eye on the sandpit — and also to conceal her embarrassment. She refused his offer of refreshments.

The bookbinder laid his crutches aside and sat down with difficulty. For a moment he gazed at her mutely, but then started to ask her questions. Was she happy with her life? What sort of childhood had she had? Had she chosen her profession because she enjoyed being with children? It was his belief that people who looked after children fulfilled a noble mission.

His language was slightly overblown but what impressed her most was his interest in her life. A sudden sense of intimacy filled her with alarm and she swiftly made her excuses and hurried off to find her son.

She would call on the old bookbinder from time to time and bring him some cakes she had baked. For his part he would present her with either books or flowers. She read the books but they meant little to her as their subject matter was too far removed from her usual reading. She never stayed longer than a few minutes in the bookbinder's flat, but those short moments increasingly began to fill her thoughts.

She now knew everything about the bookbinder's life that he considered important for her to know. He was sixty-five. He had moved there from a village where his sister still lived. Originally he was to have taken over his father's farm, but in the last days of the war his leg had been blown off by a mine and he had almost bled to death. At the age of twenty he had felt that his life was at an end. In time, however, he had come to realize that there were doors still open to him, in spite of his misfortune. Doors to knowledge and mystical experience. All he had to do was muster the strength to break free of the external world with its passions and strivings and start to open the door to a higher bliss, to the vision of God. One door did remain closed. He could never start a family of his own. As the years went by, he gradually lost those close to him and he lived out his days in solitude, only visiting his sister during the summer. He was usually away at this time of year.

'Why are you still here, then?' she asked.

'But you know perfectly well why,' he replied.

It sometimes occurred to her that he made rather too much of the tranquillity and contentment he had achieved. She had the feeling that the equanimity on which he laid such stress merely concealed a deep longing as well as the wounds he had suffered in the distant past. At other times, she found his statements completely baffling. She could not understand his enthusiasm for the religion of the ancient Aryans and the mores of their Slav forebears, nor why he suspected the Jews of conspiring against all other nations. She didn't know any Jews anyway, let alone any Indians, and the concerns or practices of the ancient Slavs were alien to her. None the less she listened attentively to the old man as if wanting to make up for all the years when no one had listened to him.

At the end of spring, her husband was due to leave Prague for a week on business: whenever she thought of his departure she felt a thrill, though she wasn't quite sure why. The evening after Jakub s departure, she waited until her son was asleep and then changed into her best clothes. She sat down in front of the mirror and gazed at her face for a long time. She tried to apply some eyeshadow but her hands trembled too much. Instead she went into the bedroom where her son was sleeping, kissed him on the forehead and then tiptoed out onto the landing. The noise of television sets was audible as she passed the other flats, but when she lightly pressed his doorbell it seemed as if the sound could be heard through all thirteen floors.

He came to the door. 'Is something wrong?'

She shook her head. She sat down on the chair, where she usually sat — on the occasions when she did sit. The bookbinder brought a bottle of wine and two glasses. 'Have you the time today?'

She noticed that there was a new picture of her on the wall but she was unable to concentrate on it.

'Has your husband gone?'

She nodded.

'A pity I'm so old,' he lamented, 'and a cripple into the bargain.'

'That's not important, is it? The main thing is I really enjoy being with you.' She was at a loss what to do. She stood up and turned towards the door, but stopped disconcerted in the middle of the room. 'Do you think I should go?'

'No, definitely not!'

She didn't look at him. Several dark cobwebs hung from the ceiling and the sound of music came through the wall.

The old man came over to her and kissed her on the neck. 'It's a long time since I have been with a woman. Many years.'

She put her arms around him. Suddenly all the embarrassment and uncertainty left her. She went over to the ottoman, took off her clothes and waited for him to join her.

He came and sat by her, gently calling her by the names of different Slav goddesses while stroking her forehead, her cheeks, her neck and her breasts. His words and his touch aroused a deep longing in her. She whispered words that came unexpectedly into her mind, as if she were weaving charms for herself and the old man. When at last he lay down beside her it was as if she had waited her whole life for this moment and she became aware of an unfamiliar delight that went on growing until she could bear it no longer and she let out a cry loud enough to penetrate all thirteen floors and rouse everyone, whether awake or asleep.

The bookbinder caressed her body with his coarse hands and waves of bliss washed over her again and again. 'I love you,' she whispered, 'I love you.' At that moment she overheard a strange barking sound coming from beyond the wall. Her son was suffocating.

She rushed out onto the landing half naked. When she opened the door she was greeted with total silence. She went numb at the thought of her son lying there lifeless, having choked to death while she wickedly indulged her passion.

But Matous was asleep and breathing peacefully. One of his pillows had simply fallen off his bed onto the floor. 'Oh, my poor little lamb!' She knelt down and touched his forehead and the wisps of his hair that had grown damp as he slept. 'Mummy will never leave you on your own again!' She stretched out on the rug, put the child's pillow under her head and closed her

eyes. Red spots danced before her eyes, swelling up and then dwindling again. Gradually butterflies' wings emerged and flittered above her, combining to form romantic landscapes. Then everything faded and went dark and out of the darkness emerged the figure of the old bookbinder. His face was bathed with light and, with a sudden sense of happiness, she realized that the light was coming from her.

The next evening, as soon as her son fell asleep she went to find the old man and spent most of the night with him. It was nearly morning when she returned. She lay down beside her son's bed and fell asleep straight away.

When Jakub returned a week later he found her haggard, as if exhausted from a fever. She avoided his kiss and was scarcely aware of what he was saying. Then she announced that she couldn't live with him any more and tried to explain to him what had happened. He listened to her aghast. When he had grasped the sordid nature of her infidelity, he yelled at her that she disgusted him. He was about to hit her but it seemed too theatrical and undignified, so he just spat on the floor and dashed out of the room. She could hear him shouting from the next room, most likely for her benefit but perhaps he wanted the person downstairs to hear. With a cripple like that — she goes and does it with a senile cripple!'

Marie put her son to bed. For a moment she hesitated over whether she should go to her husband and try and make him understand that she had no wish to hurt him. Then she realized that the old bookbinder was sure to be waiting for her and she crept out onto the landing.

When news of her behaviour spread, people were scandalized. Such a misalliance left all other adultery in the shade. A social worker voiced doubts about whether she was a suitable

person to bring up her son and submitted a lengthy report to her superiors showing that the mother had left her child alone in the flat night after night. The director of the crèche asked her to find a job somewhere people didn't know her.

On the day of the divorce hearing, the old bookbinder accompanied her to court. He carefully stood his crutches against the wall and took a seat in the back row.

The judge was a stout, kindly looking man. In his time he had dissolved hundreds of marriages but he would always try to reconcile the couples, usually without success. He tried to reconcile Marie Anna with her husband too. Lots of unexpected things could happen in the course of a marriage, he told them. People found themselves in situations they would have never have dreamed of and so found it impossible to deal with them: at such moments they could take rash decisions that they would regret. It was up to their partners, if they loved them, to show forbearance and offer them a helping hand.

He turned to Marie and urged her to consider her actions and think not only about her partner who had so far behaved like a model husband, but also to take her son's interests into account. Nothing would ever make up for the comfort of a happy home. A child should be brought up by the joint efforts of both parents. Didn't she realize that she could lose her son not only by a court decision, but also by a judgement of the heart, were her son not to accept her actions when he was old enough to fully understand? And last but not least she should think about herself. After all, she too wanted to live with someone who was her equal, spend not just a few short months with him but live to see the fruits of their joint efforts, live with her partner to a ripe old age, when one needed the support of one's companion more than in one's youth. The judge looked

towards the seats where her lover sat, whose early demise he seemed to prophesy, and then turned to her husband and asked him if he was still willing to take Marie back as his wife. Jakub seemed overcome with emotion and was about to say something when he simply nodded. The judge adjourned the hearing to give them time to think things over.

The three of them left the court room. Jakub hesitated for a moment, then, without a word, started to stride away, healthy and self-confident, while she walked along silently at the side of the lame old man.

The bookbinder talked continuously as if suddenly taken aback by his responsibility: the hearing was bound to have upset her and she must have been scared by the threat of her son being taken away from her by the authorities. It was an unlikely eventuality, but should there really be such a risk, she was not to take him, an old man, into account. He would leave and remove the burden that he was becoming to her.

She shook her head. In fact she hadn't found the hearing particularly upsetting. She felt that it had nothing to do with her and she had not yet absorbed the fact that she might lose her son.

The old man at her side picked up the judge's words about death and those who are left alone. He said he had no right to ask her to bind herself to him, to take her away from her family and then abandon her, leaving her alone in the world.

She listened to him horrified. How could he talk so coldbloodedly if he loved her? How could he call into question the very thing that had raised them above what would otherwise be a meaningless existence?

She shook her head once more. Then they parted company and without another glance in his direction she hurried off to

fetch her son. Only now did the judges words begin to sink in. When Matous ran up to meet her at the kindergarten, she took him in her arms, hugged him and burst into tears.

Back home she played with the little boy, then fed him and put him to bed. Her husband had gone off somewhere, but for the first time in ages she did not go down to the flat below.

In the bathroom she glanced in the mirror. She had grown thin over the past three weeks, her face struck her as emaciated, with her small eyes looking even more deeply set, surrounded by a dark shadow.

Jakub returned before midnight. His face showed momentary surprise but he walked past her in silence. He stank of beer.

She lay down in the bedroom which until recently she had shared with Jakub but which neither of them used these days. The judge had warned her about loneliness should she remain with the old man and he died before she did. As if death was governed solely by age, and death alone determined people's loneliness. As if a few months of love didn't mean more than a whole life without it.

She got up, put on her dressing gown, and quietly opened the door behind which her husband was lying. He wasn't asleep, he was smoking.

'Don't take him from me,' she said, meaning her son.

He didn't even turn his head towards her.

'I don't know why it happened,' she went on, 'but we were happy.'

Jakub made a gagging noise.

'Forgive me. I don't know why it happened.' She realized that he could never understand her choice and so he could hardly grant her this wish. Receiving no reply, she turned and left the room.

She stopped outside the door on the floor below but didn't ring the bell; she just stood and waited. She listened to the silence from inside. Nothing disturbed it. She realized she had no wish to disturb it either. A man may be a cripple, but he must remain a man who did not shy away from responsibility.

She walked down the remaining six floors.

Fate offered everyone a moment when they could shine, the chance of some deed to transcend their own emptiness. But when that moment passed, what then? What should follow?

She leaned wearily against the wall of the building. She looked upwards, but the light of the stars was obscured by the glow of the street lamps.

(1987)

RICH MEN TEND TO BE STRANGE

There are men who love women, there are men who love alcohol, nature or sport, there are men who love children or work, and there are men who love money. It is possible, of course, for a man to love more than one of these, but he will always give one priority over the rest. If he is sufficiently ambitious he can hope to achieve the thing he yearns for most.

Alois Burda loved money and subordinated everything else to it. Under the old regime he was the manager of a car mart, under the new one he opened one of his own. Under the old regime he had skilfully negotiated with the few cars he had for sale and soon found a way of maximizing bribes. After the revolution, his above-board commission gave him about the same income as he had enjoyed previously. Alois Burda was therefore a rich man and as early as the 1970s had built himself a family home with a living area (in accordance with the legislation then in force) of less than 120 square metres. In reality it was three times the size. The house contained a gymnasium, a covered swimming pool and three garages, and alongside it

stood a tennis court, although he himself didn't play tennis. He had one secret bank account in Switzerland, and since the Swiss banks paid miserable interest rates, he had another in Germany. He had only been divorced once because he discovered that divorce could be a rather expensive business. With his first wife he had two sons, with his second, a daughter. He rarely saw his sons. Since they had grown up they didn't meet more than once a year. He soon grew tired of his second wife too, though she took fairly good care of the home and didn't bother him too much. Nor did she concern herself with how he spent his free time. She was fond of sports and went skiing and horse-riding, played tennis and golf and was a good swimmer, none of which interested him in the least. From time to time he would take a mistress, although he would seldom feel anything for her and expected nothing in return.

Occasionally he would ask his daughter for news from school, but he would forget her reply by the next morning and he was never entirely sure which class she was in. Then she too left school and got married. As a wedding present he gave her a new car that cost more than half a million crowns. The gift took her by surprise and she was almost ready to believe it was given with love, although it was more likely to salve his conscience or just a momentary whim. Besides, a sum like that meant nothing to Burda.

He knew a lot of people, since he had clients everywhere, but he had no real friends. At best he had a few cronies with whom he would go for a drink from time to time or dream up business deals.

As his sixtieth birthday approached, he suddenly started to suffer from exhaustion, lost his appetite and started losing weight. He put it down to his hectic lifestyle but his wife

noticed the transformation in him and told him to go to the doctor. He ignored his wife's advice on principle, and was afraid the doctor would discover that there was something seriously wrong. He decided he would take things more easily and even take a non-business trip abroad. He also visited a well-known healer who mixed him a special herbal tea and recommended that he eat pumpkin seeds every day. But none of it did any good. Burda started to suffer from stomach pains and would wake up in the night soaked in perspiration, thirsty and in the grip of a strange anxiety.

Finally, he decided to see a doctor who was one of his oldest clients and had treated his first wife. The doctor tried to give the impression that everything was in order and chatted for a while about the latest Honda.

'Is it serious?' the car dealer asked him.

'Do you want me to be totally frank?'

The car dealer hesitated, and then nodded.

'You need an operation without delay,' the doctor said.

'And then?'

'And then we'll see.'

'Aha,' Burda realized, 'it's life or death, then?'

'None of us is here for ever,' the doctor said, 'but we must never give up hope. When they open you up, we'll know more.'

The car dealer knew, of course, that when his number came up that would be it, but he was shocked none the less. After all, he still had almost ten years to go before he attained the average life span for Czech men. He had always believed that death came most frequently in the form of a road accident. And he was an excellent driver.

'There are increasingly effective drugs around,' the doctor added, 'so don't give up hope.'

'As far as drugs are concerned, I can afford anything, however much it costs.'

'I know that,' said the doctor, 'but it's not a question of money.'

'What is it a question of, then?'

The doctor shrugged. 'Your resistance. The will of God, fate, or whatever you want to call it.'

The operation was arranged for the following week. In the meantime he would have to undergo all the necessary tests.

When Burda came home and his wife asked what the doctor had discovered, he answered laconically, 'I'm going to die.' Then he went to his room, sat down in an armchair and pondered on the strange fact that soon he might not be here any more. Human beings had always struck him as being like machines: machines and human beings wore out with use, but a machine, could be kept going more or less indefinitely by replacing its parts. But how was it with a human being? It seemed so cruel and unjust that a dead machine could be virtually eternal, whereas human components were mostly non-renewable and people were therefore condemned to die before their time. Then he started to worry over what he would do about his property and with his secret bank accounts. When he died everything he owned would go to his wife and children. This seemed to him unjust because none of them had contributed towards the family income. And besides he had given his daughter a car not long ago — and his sons didn't want to know him. It was true that his wife took care of him, but he regularly gave her money for that and paid for her to go skiing in the Alps every winter and every spring. She was bound to have lovers all over the place, in fact he knew about one for sure. He had happened to come upon a letter from the man in

his wife's handbag when he was looking for a bill or something. So why, in addition to all the property and money of his that she would inherit, should his wife get money that she didn't even know existed, just because he had married her?

Then he pondered on the doctor's words about hope and the will of God. To rely on the will of God was as pointless as trusting in fate. The will of God was just something to pacify the weak and the poor, whereas fate did what it was bribed to do. So far he had successfully bribed it and now he shied from the thought of drawing a total blank.

That same afternoon, he climbed into his Mercedes, taking with him his passport and a suitcase, and set off for the border. There was only a hundred thousand francs in his Swiss account, but more in his German one. To the dismay of the teller he asked for it in cash. He returned with the money the next evening and hid the bank notes in a little safe to which he alone had the combination. The following day he went for his first test.

When he was about to go into hospital he was faced with the problem of what to do with the money. The doctor had warned him that he might be in for several weeks. That he might never leave was not mentioned, but the car dealer was all too aware that this possibility could not be ruled out. In fact he might never leave the operating theatre alive. He didn't feel like leaving the money at home, but he could hardly take it to the hospital. Where could he hide it? What would he do with it while he was lying unconscious on the operating table?

Eventually he made up his mind and divided up the hundred-thousand wads into smaller bundles which he stuffed into some old felt slippers and hid them with a pair of rolled socks. Then in his wife's presence he packed the slippers into a

box and sealed it with sticking tape, asking her to bring it to the hospital along with a few other odds and ends, such as ordinary slippers, his toilet bag, two issues of a motoring magazine and his wallet with a few hundred crowns as soon as he asked for them.

He put aside a few thousand marks, sealing them in an envelope for the surgeon. However, the latter made some vague excuse about being superstitious and not 'wanting to hear about money before the operation, and refused to take the envelope from him.

When they opened Burda up on the operating table they discovered that the cancer had not only taken possession of his pancreas, it had also invaded other organs. A radical operation looked so hopeless that they simply sewed him back up again. After two days on the intensive care ward, he was transferred to ward eight which he shared with two other patients. The man to his left was an old blabbermouth from the country who spent most of his time telling trivial stories about his life back home and worrying over the fate of the smallholding that he had left his wife to look after on her own. In the bed to his right was an old man who said nothing and was most likely dying. Now and then, whether awake or asleep, he would produce strange, unintelligible animal-like screeches. These would disturb the car dealer even more than the smallholder's stories, which he simply ignored.

The doctors prescribed a great many drugs and once a day a nurse would bring a stand over to his bedside and hang a bottle from it. She would then insert a needle into one of his veins and he could watch the blood or some colourless liquid flow down the transparent tube and into his body. In spite of it, he felt more and more wretched with each passing day.

His wife brought him all the things he had asked for, adding a bunch of Gerbera and a jar of stewed fruit.

Flowers didn't interest him and he had lost all appetite for food. When his wife left, he opened the box with the slippers, took out the socks and checked that the wads of bank notes were there. He stuffed the socks back in, closed the box and hid it in his bedside table. He was still able to walk, but only to shuffle over to the window or into the corridor before returning to his metal bed. These days he didn't even like leaving the ward. His own death wasn't something he thought about as such, but he couldn't help noticing that his strength was steadily waning. Eventually he would have no strength left at all and he would close his eyes and be incapable of thinking or speaking, let alone taking decisions. What was he going to do with that money?

His wife visited him twice a week and sometimes his married daughter would look in as well. Once his elder son came. They would each bring something he had no use for and he would put it away in his bedside table without interest, and it would either stay there or he would take it and throw it in the waste bin as soon as they had gone.

There were several nurses on the ward. Apart from one older woman, they were hardly more than schoolgirls. They all seemed alike to him and he could only tell them apart by the colour of their hair. They treated him with professional kindness and sometimes would try to joke with him or cheer him up. Before sticking the needle into his vein they would apologize that it was going to hurt a little bit. But then a new nurse appeared — probably just back from leave. She seemed no older than the others, but he was immediately struck by her voice, which reminded him of the long-lost and almost forgotten voice

of his mother. The nurse's name was Věra. He noticed that whenever she came over to him to do some routine job she would always find something to say. And to his surprise, it wasn't just the usual words of comfort, but something about the world outside; about the nice warm day, the jasmine in bloom or the strawberries already ripening on her balcony. He would listen to her, often unaware of what she was actually saying, conscious merely of the colour of her voice and its soothing quality.

One day when he was feeling slightly better after a blood transfusion, he tentatively asked her if she would come and sit by him.

'But Mr Burda,' she said in astonishment, 'what would Matron say if she caught me slacking?' None the less she brought a chair and sat down beside him, taking his hand, punctured with so many injections, and stroking the back of it.

'What sort of a life do you have, nurse?' he asked.

'What sort of a fife?' she laughed. 'Average, I suppose.'

'Do you live with your parents?'

She nodded. She told him she had a little room in a block of flats. That the room contained just a bed, a chair, a bookshelf, and a bamboo stand with pots of flowers: a passion-flower, a fuchsia and a Crown of Thorns. She talked to him for a long time about flowers. Flowers had never interested him and their names evoked neither colours nor shapes, but he was conscious of the tenderness in the woman's voice and the gentle touch of her fingers on the back of his hand. He noticed that her eyes were dark brown even though she had naturally fair hair. She promised to bring him some of the flowers she grew on her balcony and then stood up and left.

The next day she really did bring him a lily and once again she came and sat by him.

He asked her if there was anything important that she lacked.

She didn't understand the meaning of his question.

So he asked her if she had a car.

'A car?' She laughed at the question.

'And would you like one?'

'You used to sell them, didn't you?' she recalled. Then she said she had never thought of having one. She lived with her mother and they scarcely had enough money to buy the occasional bag of tomatoes. Last year she had planted a few tomato plants on the balcony but they had been attacked by mould and there had been nothing to harvest. She asked him if he liked tomatoes. She asked him the way he used to ask people if they liked caviar or whether they preferred oysters. He replied that he liked them, although in fact he couldn't recall whether he had ever enjoyed them.

He was about to ask her if she found her life depressing, but at that moment he had a sudden spasm of pain and the nurse ran off to find a doctor who gave him an injection that left him groggy.

When he began to come round that night, he realized for the first time, with absolute urgency, that he was likely to die in the next few days. He switched on the light above his bed, leaned over and took the box of slippers out of his bedside table. Underneath the rolled socks lay a fortune that could buy whole wagonloads of tomatoes.

He tidied it all away again and returned the box to the bedside table; the wealth that usually imbued him with a sense of satisfaction was suddenly becoming a burden.

Should he give it to some charity? Or to the hospital? Give it to the doctors who weren't even capable of helping him? Or

to his wife, so she could afford even more demanding lovers and go off skiing somewhere in the Rocky Mountains?

Then suddenly he could see the face of the nurse and hear the sound of her voice that so resembled his mother's. He wondered whether she would be on duty the next day and realized that he hoped she would.

She did come the next day and she brought him a tomato. It was large and firm and the colour of fresh blood. He thanked her. He bit into it and chewed the mouthful for a long time, but was unable to swallow it for fear of vomiting.

The nurse brought a stand over to his bed, attached a bottle and announced: 'We're going to have to feed you up a bit, Mr Burda. You're getting too weak.'

He nodded.

'Does your family visit you?' the nurse asked.

He ought to reply that he had no family, just a wife and three children, but instead he answered that it was a long time since anyone had visited him.

'They'll come soon,' the nurse said. 'That'll cheer you up.'

He closed his eyes.

She touched his forehead with her fingers. 'It's flowing now,' she said. 'God can 'work miracles and cure the sick as well as forgive the sinner. And He welcomes everyone with love.'

'Why?' he asked, and meant why was she telling him this, but she replied, 'Because God is love itself.'

In spite of the strong tablets they were giving him, he could not get off to sleep that night. He was thinking about the strange fact that the world would continue, that the sun would still go on rising, that cars would go on running, that they would go on dreaming up new types of car, that they would continue selling them in the showrooms that his wife would no

doubt get rid of, that new motorways and overpasses would be built, that the Petřín tunnel would be opened, but he would never hear about any of them. That realization was like an icy hand gripping him by the throat. He tried to fight it, to find someone to help him but he had no one to turn to. Then the face of the nurse who had sat by his bed appeared to him, saying that God can welcome anyone with love. God could do it, though he himself had never been able to. That was if God existed. If He did, then at least a little bit of love would reign on earth. He tried to remember those he had ever loved or who had ever loved him. But apart from his mother, who had been dead for thirty years, he couldn't think of anyone. Tomorrow he would ask the nurse where she had come by her belief in God, or in love, at least. Finally he fell asleep. When he woke up in the middle of the night, an absurd idea struck him: he would give the money to the nurse. For telling him those things about God and love. For stroking his forehead even though she knew he was going to die. She was aware of it just as all the others were, but they didn't stroke his forehead.

Then he tried to imagine how she would respond to unexpected wealth. Would she accept it? In his experience, people never refused money. Outwardly they hesitated, but eventually they succumbed. He couldn't just stuff several million into her pocket, though; he would have to ask her to call a notary. He would dictate his will and leave the money to her. What would she do with it?

The following day, instead of questioning her about her beliefs, he asked her 'whether she lived only with her mother, or if she was going out with someone.

She stared in surprise, but she answered him. Her boyfriend's name was Martin and he was a violinist. They had been at a

concert together the previous evening. It had been a performance of Beethoven s D Minor concerto. Did he know it? Did he like it?

He wasn't familiar with Beethoven, even though he must have heard the name some time. He had never had any time for music. There was always music playing in the showrooms, but it was pop music.

She went on to tell him that she and Martin were getting married in the autumn. 'Will you come to our wedding?' she asked.

'If you invite me.'

The next day nurse Věra was off duty, so he had a chance to reflect on whether he had thought things through clearly, and whether his decision hadn't been over-hasty. What if he got better? What if God were to perform a miracle or one of the medicines they were injecting into him restored his strength? Why else would the nurse have invited him to her wedding? She would hardly have been joking with a dying man.

Besides, the sum was disproportionately large, and there was the risk that his gift might make them suspect her of malpractice. But he could make her a gift of some of the money — at least that bundle of 1000-franc notes.

The next day his condition deteriorated but he was fully conscious of nurse Věra coming to him and putting some fresh flowers into a bottle of water, and then bringing over the stand and inserting a needle into his left leg.

'I'll make it up to you,' he said in an undertone.

'The way to make it up to me is by getting better,' she said. Then she opened the window and said, 'Can you smell it? The lime trees are in blossom already.'

He could smell nothing. He just felt an enormous weariness.

He ought to tell her to call the notary, but at that moment it occurred to him that the whole idea was ridiculous: he should simply put a few bank notes into the pocket of her overall. Even that would be a fortune as far as she was concerned.

The nurse stroked his forehead and went out of the room.

The next night Alois Burda died. Nurse Věra happened to be on duty and a few seconds before he took his last breath she came and sat near him and held his hand. By then it was unlikely that he even noticed.

Afterwards the nurse was given the job of removing the possessions from the dead man's bedside table and making a precise list of everything. She did so. The list had eighteen items; number eleven read: One pair of felt slippers with one pair of socks inside. The nurse was surprised at how heavy the slippers were and it occurred to her to take out the socks, list them separately and look inside the slippers, but she didn't as it would mean her adding another item to the list, and besides it seemed pointless to waste time on things that no one was likely to use any more.

When Burda's wife came to the hospital for the death certificate, they handed her a bag of the deceased's property and a list of its contents. His wife ran her eye down the list of things. In the last few years she had grown sick of her husband and the few pathetic items he had left behind sickened her even more. They handed her his wallet and the three hundred crowns. She took the bag and put it in the boot of her car. When she was driving away from the hospital she noticed an illegal rubbish tip. She pulled up in front of it and took a careful look around her. Then she opened the boot and tossed the bag onto the tip.

That evening nurse Věra had a date with her violinist. 'That Burda on ward eight went to the mortuary the night before

last,' she announced. 'He was supposed to be horribly rich — one of the richest men in Prague.'

'And did he give you anything?'

'No,' she said, 'he only had three hundred crowns in his wallet.'

'Rich men tend to be strange,' he said. 'Who do you think he'll leave it all to?'

'Goodness knows,' she said. 'I don't think he had anyone. He had no one to come and hold his hand, not even for those last few moments.'

(1994)